Sure, there are innocent enough slogans-on-any-items like “True Crime and Chill” and “True Crime, glass of wine, in bed by 9” because women obsessed with both True Crime and a subscription to some Wine Club is a Venn diagram. But type in “serial killer” on Etsy, and you’ll get over 10,000 hits of items with deranged faces of American murderers accompanied by the kind of copy that … oh, let’s just show it to you.
There’s one of the site’s most popular items for people who think they’ve got dark humor down:
Or what about this poster? Who wouldn’t want to hang this in their living room?
A kitchen and a chopping board is murdery, right? Also, cannibalism, lol!
And then there are these Valentine cards that straight up romanticize serial killers, like the one with Ed Gein’s face on it that reads “I want to decorate my house with you” because some people make it really easy for you to spot the red flag:
Now, obviously, most of these items are trying to poke fun at creeps and murderers, but there’s something quite alarming in seeing women spend their money on towels with Ted Bundy’s face on it. This strange trend feels like a way for people to mask their anxieties and convince themselves that they’ve taken control over the real-life horrors involved here, but reducing those horrors to some gag joke is simply another way for people to become desensitized.